[Techtalk] My son is a network hog -- limiting usage on one computer (fedora 15)?

Gwen Morse gwen.morse at gmail.com
Sat Dec 3 16:37:35 UTC 2011


We have 5 people sharing the internet connection in our home. We have a
peak/off peak plan with something like 50 or 60 gigs split between the two
times. Changing the data plan and/or updating the configuration on the
router are not options. My husband and I rent from my husband's parents and
they refuse any changes of that sort. Their house, their rules. :).

That said, my 19 year old son is burning through the household bandwidth
every month watching Youtube videos, listening to podcasts, and doing
whatever else it is he's actually doing.

I do *not* want to monitor the specifics of what he's doing. He's 19 and
can do what he likes (within legal reason). I want all of us to stop being
throttled because one person in the house is a network pig. I've talked to
my son repeatedly but he still keeps going over the limit.

What I'd like is to know what I can use to set a nice round limit (say 1
gig a month) and have it monitor his usage and then throttle him on his
laptop if he goes over that limit. After a month it would reset and start
all over again.

Many/most ISPs use linux (or unix) for their servers and I was wondering
what package I could use to do something like this?

I've looked at some traffic shaping software but I'm not sure that's what I
want. I don't want to prioritize certain traffic. I just want to (almost)
cut him off once he goes over a predetermined limit.

Gwen


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